Blackblade 05.0 - Kiyah, Monk 4 Lyfe
Climbing back out from the depths of the kobold labyrinth, Raito and Ragoom reunited with Caelan. After a blunt and somewhat lacking recount of the events that transpired, Raito decided that it was easier to just bring Caelan back to see the strange enchantment himself. The three returned to the room below, and Caelan too saw the convoluted, complicated magic circle. Nothing new could be gleaned from its glowing patterns; it resisted all attempts to destroy, copy or understand it. Unsettled, the group decided to move on, taking the still-unconscious kobold Wizard with them, lest he snitch their identities to the "sorta-white-eyed guy". Taking their leave, they set out back into the mire. After a lunch of fresh fish and several hours of trudging through the swamp, Raito managed to spot a man off in the distance, resting under a tree. The figure was a bald, half-naked human, scarred from years of fighting, bearing nothing but his pants and an enchanted medallion of some sort. Caelan woke him with a series of shouts (many of which would have easily awoken a lesser man), and he sprang into a flurry of action. Within a moment of being awakened, he assaulted Caelan, Raito and Ragoom, all while having a reasonably friendly conversation, where he identified himself as Kiyah. He did not fight Kirsikka, but only because he could not obtain permission from her rider to do so. They managed to inform him of the hobgoblin army in the north, and he expressed an interest in fighting them, after he finished his personal quest in the mire: to find and combat the deadly manticore. Before he took his leave of them, he said that, if there was such a battle in the north brewing, they should go find his friend Yearl, an orc who lives in the Asonian plains. With that, he jogged off into the swamp, looking for his target. Deciding their tasks in the swamp finished, the group began to take their leave. They decided to head southeast, taking the shortest and easiest path out of the mire and back to the grasslands. On the way, Wizard regained consciousness and began to struggle madly, flailing and screaming that he had to get back to the enchantment before the sorta-white-eyed guy came and punished him and his family. Unable to calm him and unwilling to let him escape, the group took Wizard to the site of the blasted warren. The sight of his home destroyed and his family dead shocked and devastated the little sorcerer, who retreated into his hat to mourn. They walked a bit further before nightfall, when they were forced to make camp. During the night, Wizard approached Caelan and talked with him, answering some questions in his juvenile manner before falling asleep. Apparently, whoever this "sorta white eyed guy" was, he came from far away with an armoured escort, at least one of whom was a robe-wearing woman. He commanded the kobold warren to build the labyrinth and leave, never to return to the site, and Wizard to create the enchantment and stay, to guard and protect the magic circle. He threatened to kill all of them should one disobey, and promised that he would be watching them. The next day was spent walking: it took several hours to finally escape the mire, and all the way until evening for the group to reach the nearest town, south of the swamps. Entering the small town of Rochester, they found it strangely quiet, almost entirely abandoned. They found the local chapter of the AAA, a very well-made and fancy building compared to the other branches they had seen, and entered to find it too almost empty. Only two people were within: the clerk, a particularly stressed and overtired man by the name of Aiden, and a slightly dim youth named Stephen working in the kitchen. Between the exclamations of Steve and the short snaps of Aiden, the group learned that many people had abandoned the town under the pretense of a "curse", wherein townsfolk had been going missing over the last few months. During this exchange, Caelan managed to glimpse Aiden's cufflinks, which were upon further inspection, pins of the Ember Gang. Mentioning this to Raito, the Yetoman seized the opportunity to mention Jack Callahan's name, which Aiden leapt upon. Raito, assuring the man that his group was indeed sent here personally by Jack, was lead outside by Aiden with the rest of his group. While chain smoking as hard as any man possibly could, Aiden explained that while yes, many people had gone missing in the woods to the north, one man in particular had left town of his own volition two days ago: Mr. Grey, the owner of AAA. Believing he could stop whatever force was stealing people away, the 62 year old man had set off into the woods alone and had not returned. Fearing vehemently for the man's life and particularly the state of his company should he die, Aiden ordered them to find Mr. Grey and bring him back immediately, hoping that the woods had not yet claimed him. The group left Wizard in Aiden and Steve's care, and set north for the woods, reaching the edge by nightfall. Category:Banishment of the Blackblades